The repercussions continue from a Spring Valley gang attacking Nyack gang members as a result of a gang-related bandanna snatching at Nyack High School.
Five Nyack High School students face disciplinary action for violating the district’s “Code of Conduct.” All five face superintendent’s hearings after being suspended from daily classes, district spokeswoman Gail Fleur said today. Fleur said she cannot disclose the names of the students, the potential lengths of suspensions or specifically how they violated the district’s “Code of Conduct.”
In a letter to the parents dated May 1, Nyack Schools Superintendent Valencia F. Douglas offers some vague insights. She discussed the Code of Conduct violations in terms of the students’ actions “apparently helped to fuel the fight in the village.” The letter goes on to state that, “We continue to have zero tolerance for students wearing any gang related apparel or expressing affiliation with a gang.”
Douglas’s letter also says only seniors will be allowed off campus during the day for the rest of the school year; students must wear their ID badges; and three additional security officers have been hired for the high school. She also wrote to parents that, “We will continue to work with the suspended students and their parents/guardians to ensure that our students are able to come to the campus in ways that are safe to everyone.”
The superintendent’s letter doesn’t discuss the issue of gang members attending district schools, but it is step up in reality from her initial e-mail to parents a day after the gang fight in the village of Nyack. In that e-mail, she assured parents that Nyack students weren’t involved in the fight. But she also said the high school would be a closed campus and security would be heightened in light of the fight.
Orangetown police burst that bubble by reporting the fight involved gangs from Nyack and Spring Valley. The police also stated the fight precipitated at the high school when a young woman wore a red bandanna around her neck, apparently boasting of affiliation with a Bloods street gang. A young man from a rival gang from Nyack yanked off the bandanna – a sign of disrespect and a gang challenge.
The girl called her Spring Valley boyfriend, a reputed gang member. By mid-afternoon, Spring Valley gangstas cabbed it over to Nyack, armed with bats, hammer claws and other weapons. Nyack’s gang members quickly organized and fights broke out, bringing in police from Orangetown, South Nyack, Clarkstown, the Sheriff’s Department, including officers on horseback. Police even set up a command post.
Among the five young men arrested, two attended Nyack High School.
Spring Valley and Nyack youths have a history of confrontation dating decades, regardless of gang affiliations.
Orangetown police were continuing to investigate the fight, looking for the young men who injured two Nyack residents with hammer claw blows and knifes. Detective Lt. James Brown said progress is being made and said the school district is cooperating, even though Orangetown police don’t have jurisdiction at any of the district schools. Clarkstown police have officers inside the Upper Nyack high school and the Middle School is under South Nyack-Grand View.
Another result of the gang fight has mobilized some Nyack elected officials and civic leaders to come up with programs for youths in the village – especially those who live in the Nyack Plaza apartments, which  has one basketball court. A meeting with the public is scheduled for 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Nyack Center on Broadway.